Haunted
by H. S. Hines
Summary: Sesshomaru falls in love with Rin... can she handle it? Oneshot, complete. Dark. Winner 1st place best songfic at the Feudal Association!


_Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi, Viz, Sunrise, Yomiuri TV and I'm sure a bunch of other people who are not me are the owners of InuYasha and the characters within. Still, inspired to dream, inspired to write, from page and scene, it is my plight. _

_Notes: This is a oneshot. I'm taking yet another used theme and trying to portray it differently than I've ever read it. This is the other side of the coin from "Lie To Me" asking "What **wouldn't **Rin give to Sesshomaru?"_

Genre: Angst  
Rating: M  
Codes: Sess/Rin  
Feedback: Reviews beget more fiction! My muse has become very active on the feed and as he gets happier, my stories get better, or so it seems… Don't flame, though, because he doesn't like his feed burned.

_New note in response to being flamed out the ass:** I love Sesshomaru, he's my favorite character**. Sesshomaru is not supposed to be entirely 'in character' in this story. Deal with it. Don't read it if you can't handle OOCness._

**"Haunted"**

"Don't do such a useless thing… I told you, I don't need anything…" Sesshomaru had spoken so many words then that seemed as lies to Rin now. He called her concerns over him stupid; he called _her_ annoying, yet… When she cried out, he was there. When she fell, he was there. As she grew and teenage angst caused her to rant against him, he didn't send her away. And when he finally noticed her, she didn't leave.

She didn't know what to think the first time he touched her. Something in her knew it was wrong, that he shouldn't touch her like that, but another part of her entirely wanted it. She wanted him to love her and this seemed like love. She heard the words of the humans they encountered when they called him a monster; when they called her a whore. She didn't know what that meant, but she knew he was no monster.

She ran to him and held his hand through the blood and didn't care. She knew it would never be hers and she knew, in her heart, that the blood was from those who would have hurt them. She never feared him, even when what he did hurt. The night he sent Jaken away and turned to her, asking if she would do anything he asked and she had agreed without thought—that had been the first time he hurt her.

He had opened her kimono and touched her for the first time when not saving her. He had barely spoken a word and she didn't cry out when it hurt, knowing it would upset him. She had only tried to give him what he wanted, tried to serve him well. As she grew older, she understood what he had done, what he still did with her at night. She understood why they called her a whore.

"Rin, I need you," his words became. She both hated and adored when he spoke those words. She loved him, but not as a lover and it hurt her heart, while her body betrayed her, filled with him, screaming for him. He watched her now, not letting her out of his sight. When a mortal man came near, he was there, giving him a look that sent him running. She belonged to him and must not betray him with another man, ever. And so Rin was lonely, the part of her that had dreamed of a family of her own dying and growing hollow within.

She learned to fear him for the first time when she missed her cycle and he beat her until blood flowed again. But still, she rose to her feet and followed him with it running down her legs. Still, the pain wasn't enough to take away that she loved him. His rage had always been carefully hidden from her until now. Having it turned against her caused her heart to break in two. A piece of her had died the night he took her the first time, another part died the first time he beat her.

The next day, he was gone and she didn't understand what she had done to deserve such a punishment. Her heart ached for him, her body missed him and even if it meant another beating, she couldn't live without him—even if he killed her. She disobeyed him for the first time and went searching for him, hunting the predator that had so consumed her. She could hear his voice, reprimanding her, calling to her and her confused heart had to find him and discover why she had been discarded.

He found her long before she saw him and she knew he watched her at night and would come no closer. She prayed to him as she fell asleep, begging for forgiveness. She begged for him to hurt her, to love her, to touch her again. She finally broke down and cried one night and that was when he appeared. His eyes were dark and she feared for him, feared him, but reached out to him and he reached back.

"I don't want to hurt you," he told her, pulling her against his armor.

"I don't care if you hurt me," she whispered back. "I just don't want you to leave me."

"I love you, Rin, I can't…" he looked away, into the night and she understood why he left. She had ignored the slurs against humanity he dropped from time to time, but she knew how he felt about what she was. At the same time, she knew he didn't mind her, because she was content to be human and what he despised more was those who wanted to be what they weren't. Rin was never anything but herself and he told her that was why he loved her. "I made you fear me," he whispered. "I can't bear it in your eyes." She couldn't promise to never fear him again, but she did the one thing she never had since he had reached for her so many years ago—she touched him first.

She pulled off his armor and undressed him as he had done for her so many times. She gave herself to him as an offering, as a gift and a final prayer. It was the first night it didn't hurt at all. She had finally fallen away from her own heart for him. The last thing he hadn't taken from her was gone and that night was as much rape as any night she fought, but it was the first time she accepted it as such. It was the first time she gave in and let it happen without any resistance. He took the last of her freedom that night, while trying to give it to her.

The night Sesshomaru found Rin, her blood on the ground and on her own hands, he had been coming to apologize for the first time for what he had taken from her. He never imagined so much pain had lingered in the heart he killed within her. He fell to his knees and touched her face for the last time, watching the light leaving her dark eyes. She pleaded in them with him not to save her this last time. He pulled her into his arms and held her broken body as it bled to death and begged her to reconsider. He fell that night, broken by the heart he had denied until it used him to break the most precious thing he had ever come to possess.

Rin smiled for him one last time and told him that she was sorry for leaving and he told her he was sorry for hurting her. She said she knew, but it was too late and she couldn't continue this way. He gave her everything of himself and nothing at all in the end. When her eyes closed a final time, Sesshomaru died with her. Of all the blood on his hands, hers was the only stain that would never leave him.

_**The End.**_

_I also feel the need to add this: If you or someone you know is being abused, don't be like Rin. It doesn't get better and it's not romantic to end up committing suicide like Rin did. No matter how much you love someone, it's not okay for them to hurt you non-consensually or in any way that could jeapordize your life._

_A/N: (**you don't have to read this if you're not going to leave a review about how Rin wouldn't have stayed with Sesshomaru after he raped her because, statistically, she would have, like it or not, that's the way it was in feudal Japan... hell, in feudal anywhere and in fact, still continues today**). Due to a rip, I felt the need to address an issue this story brings up. Sesshomaru raped Rin in this story, repeatedly and she did not leave, nor even consider leaving him. Why? This is a sad FACT: OVER 60 percent of rapes in the US (which has the highest percentage of reported rapes in the world) are NOT reported officially. Many victims of the crime are attacked by people they know and trust. While the US has 20 times the amount of rapes reportedin Japan, the rate in Japan is low because the police do virtually nothing. Men can get off on the smallest technicality. That's MODERN. Let's go back 500 years to when women had not little rights, but NO rights. Now, let's add that Sesshomaru is the only man in Rin's life and he started abusing her when she was young._

_First, she wouldn't know any different, so she wouldn't know it was wrong at first. Once you're used to any form of abuse, you don't believe there is a way to escape it. For Rin, the only way she could get away from it was to die or let Sesshomaru leave her. But she couldn't have lived on her own, in that society. Women were brought up to believe they needed a man just to live. The chances of her leaving him, or allowing him to leave her were almost non-existent. _

_I could continue to state reasons why Rin would believe that suicide was her only answer, but there's a good chance that the people I need to explain this to don't want to hear the truth. They want to believe that women have always been strong and had a voice to defend themselves. While that's a nice fantasy, every right that every woman in this world has today (and if you're from the US or similar countries, know that most women DON'T have the same rights you do) was fought, bled and died for. That doesn't make the women who were taken advantage of for it weak or stupid or anything else (sexual abuse knows no race, age, religion or intelligence) or lesser in any way. It means they were victimized. And to Rin, killing herself at the end was the 'strong' thing to do--all she had to restore her honor (please keep your cultural opinions of suicide out of this and look at it from her perspective)._

_I'm sorry that I had to add such a long author's note, but if people wouldn't be chicken about being confronted when they rip or flame an author, then I could have just explained to each reviewer individually. I research EVERYTHING I write with the intention to keep it realistic. _


End file.
